This week’s readings bring up a completely new, daunting topic, climate change. Watching videos of calving glaciers ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC3VTgIPoGU ) induces thoughts of the scary future that is imminently approaching, where rising oceans will impact large portions of the worlds population.

Analysis of the cities reactions to natural disasters discussed in the readings further induces doubt about the future of less privileged households in the face of rising oceans and other natural disasters.

Miriam Greenberg in “The Disaster inside the Disaster: Hurricane Sandy and post crisis redevelopment” discusses a pattern she calls “crisis driven development”, whereby changes in cities are implemented because of a radical problem. The opposite side of this same spectrum is discussed in Jarret Murphy’s “The Flood Next Time”, where he says the city uses its “flexible adaption pathway” principles to plan for the more foreseeable future, and hope for future innovations to help plan forward. Both “crisis driven development” and “the flexible adaption pathway” are really ways of saying things will happen because there will be changes pushing them along, either in the form of major crisis or new innovation.

However, in the meantime, Melissa Checker in “Green is the New Brown: “Old School Toxics” and Environmental Gentrification on a New York City Waterfront”, primarily discusses the North Shore of Staten Island, and actions taken by the Bloomberg Administration known as PlaNYC. PlaNYC is an effort to plan for changes in NYC, including expected increases in population, changing climates, and aging infastructure ( http://www.nyc.gov/html/planyc/html/about/about.shtml ). The Mayor’s Office of Recovery and Resiliency (OPR) also splits responsibility with The Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability (OLTPS) to ensure proper implementation of PlaNYC. These offices produce reports every four years to ensure continual progress and accountability. Checker, however seems disheartened with the projects taken on by PlaNYC because she sees them in direct contrast with other non-environmentally friendly projects the city has enacted such as Yankee Stadium where she says hundreds of existing trees were destroyed. She uses the term “environmental gentrification” to describe a correlation between gentrifying neighborhoods and “amelioration of environmental burdens” from one area, that will only encourage the burdens to move to other poorer areas.

The city has effectively, through New York State’s Brownfield Cleanup Program, changed and proposed changes to the landscape of previously completely industrial wastelands into more attractive businesses and residential space. While this situation may seem completely positive, it again is just another front for gentrification, and on its official website (http://www.dec.ny.gov/chemical/8450.html), it even states its intention to “revitalize economically blighted communities.” Much like in the reshaping of Times Square, perceived societal problems are “fixed” by intervening. However, through its “intervention”, many more economic opportunities open up for big businesses, pushing out those staked in before. Specifically in this case, increased truck traffic and overcrowding at schools haven’t really been a positive asset to the community.

On the other hand, Greenberg argues in “The Disaster Inside the Disaster” writes, “a technological fix will not build real resilience, as it will not address the broader social and environmental inequalities that increase vulnerability and lay the ground for future crisis.” Meaning that, a broader even plan needs to be laid out to help fix environmental concerns all around. Even though Greenberg is specifically addressing hurricanes and Brownfield Cleanup is about industrial wasteland, similar ideas persist about help only being pumped into furthering the economics of the city, as opposed to local residents.

It seems as though economic advantages tied to ecology, lead to further gentrification throughout the whole spectrum of both climate change preparation and waste cleanups.

 

I’d also like to note, however, that in a Siemens sponsored study measuring carbon dioxide emissions per capita, water consumption, waste recycled, and number of LEED-certified buildings NYC came up in the top three cities in 2011 (http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2011/06/30/new-york-emerges-as-green-city-leader/). So, it seems as though, Bloomberg was able to accomplish multiple goals. Not only did New York grow economically during his time as mayor, it also made great environmental strides. Nonetheless, through some of those policies, low income locals living in many parts of New York City, were pushed out of their homes to make way for gentrified, ‘green’ spaces.

Hi Mariyanthie! Great blog! I appreciated your attention to detail oriented facts and examples. Your conclusions are well supported with evidence and you seem to have a great grasp on the material. Your comparison of Burden to Jacobs and Moses brings light to idea that a mixture of both ideas can create an even more exclusive ‘public’ place all while encouraging both the gentrification present in Jacob’s ideas, and the drive to build marvelous structures, like Moses had.

Burdens demanding attitude, is what allowed her to leave her mark on the city. In Building like Moses with Jacobs in Minds, an attitude present before the financial collapse was that Burden could simply point, and condos would go up. Similar to Moses, she did all in her power to produce what she saw as best for the future of the city. Similar to Jacobs, Burdens likes a modern walkable city filled with culture. However, Burdens likes carefully sculpted cultural areas, rather than naturally forming ones. Her desire for control, yet praise of urban aesthetics leaves her ideas in between Jacobs and Moses, pulling ideas from both to support her wild building.

Her micromanaging may have been annoying to those working with her, but plans representative of all her ideals took place. However, like you bring up, these seemingly praiseworthy plans came at the expense of other options that could’ve been used to help lower income families and provide greater access to public space.

It seems as though, however, that appealing public space only enables gentrification and pushing out of lower income people. All options of placement for an aesthetically pleasing park end up creating further divides either through gentrification or further exclusion. Burden, however, went beyond the typical park, and used starchitects to further push up the ‘level’ of her parks.

Her background as an Upper East Side socialite support an idea that she doesn’t care for local people and their leisure, but rather wants to have a place built to impress. Her goals lie in impressing foreign nationals and the ultra-rich coming to visit her projects.

Thus, your conclusion that Burden did more bad than good for the sake of the average New Yorker, supports the idea that the losers in the battle for public space, again are lower/middle income peoples, who just want a place to do what they want to do.

All this criticism of division of public space got me thinking about a good way to divize future plans. Perhaps, those who feel as if they’ve been negatively impacted should be encouraged to step forward and join committees of people forming new plans. Meaning that, while perhaps Burden only joined because she had time and money available, opportunities should be offered to lower income people along with a comparable salary, so that space can be designed with them in mind too. While obviously the pushiest most powerful will win, maybe new ideas could be brought to the table to help future spaces be built with the masses in mind.

I live in Nassau County, just over the border from Far Rockaway, where I got to analyze transformation of a public space. My close proximity to the Far Rockaway Beach and Boardwalk allows me to analyze the people there and the parks uses. The redesigning of the skate-park, and cleaning of the beach (most of which was a necessity after hurricane Sandy rocked the area), made the area aesthetically pleasing (in my opinion at least) and families of all different backgrounds roll onto the beach and promenade during the warm months. ( http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/23/nyregion/boardwalk-returns-to-rockaways-in-time-for-beach-season.html ) My fondest memories there are on summer weekends where I’d bring my inflatable kayak, and paddle under the nearby Atlantic Beach Bridge. I’d notice great diversity of people on the beach, with many ethnicities and an often crowded, yet shared space. Typically, there would be Spanish music and barbeques, Jewish families wearing traditional modest dress, Muslims wearing hijabs and burqas, along with a multitude of different spoken languages.

Throughout the summer, my bike route from work in Manhattan sent me over the Brooklyn Bridge, around Prospect Park, down Ocean Parkway, along the Belt Parkway, over the Marine Parkway Bridge, and finally straight down the length of Far Rockaway. I thoroughly appreciated the bike friendly route I was offered, and had an opportunity to experience riding through multi-ethnic neighborhoods. I’d notice diversity of income in the different areas, yet was happy to see public open space throughout.

I never quite thought anything of it, it was the way I’d always visualized ideal public spaces, and saw only good in urban projects.

Yet, while reading through Parks for Profit, Loughran brings up unequal opportunities afforded to people during use of the High line. He discusses how privileged people more easily use the space and private security and targeted events seem to discourage use by people of color and less privileged people. I don’t have much to go by, never having visited the High line, but it seems as though public space was divided up and disproportionate amounts in the most valuable areas were given to wealthy young whites.

The High line along with new zoning laws shifted the neighborhoods around the High line, changing an area deemed to be the epitome of the cities decline to a booming area of economic growth and gentrification. Private money being pumped into public spaces further enables cleansing of the ‘unwanted’. This model of park development produces a class of losers, who previously operated in the High line area, and those banned because of regulation of space. Winners consist of real estate developers and those moving into the gentrified area.

The High line today, has rapidly become one New York’s most visited tourist attractions and is regularly filled with buzz of a new Urbanism and a social elite.

On the NYC parks website ( http://www.nycgovparks.org/about/framework-for-an-equitable-future/community-parks-initiative/caring ) pictures of refurbishments done to parks, show gentle changes to old parks at a seeming attempt to simply improve parks function, rather than change a demographic or use. This link shows a pattern more similar to what I witnessed in Far Rockaway, where the city rebuilt public space to make it look more modern, without forcibly changing its population or use. But none-the-less changes in the High line show a disproportionate amount of space being spent to produce parks and better public space for the wealthy, when compared to poorer areas.

 

Hi Mikki! Cool post. You really cover a lot of points, and support yourself with the most accredited of sources. You clearly define winners and losers under Bloomberg’s plan, and show how even today under De Blasio, similar patterns persist and not enough changes are being made.

I’d like to temporarily diverge from broader ideas on change and instead discuss some basic economic theory. Let’s start with our axis, we have price on the vertical axis and supply of housing on the horizontal axis. Let’s draw a supply curve sloping downwards from higher up on the price axis, and a demand curve sloping upwards from the origin.

When housing is subsidized, (meaning that the government shifts the natural supply curve) by paying part of people rent, demand will simply increase and more people will want to rent apartments. Even though there is a deadweight loss, meaning that there is societal monetary loss, there are more people living in houses, and there is a change.

By Melissam16 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25533700

 

However, now picture a realistic supply curve for housing in an area where developers have maxed out capacity based on current zoning laws. It would be completely vertical, meaning that no matter the price, there were always be the same number of houses available. This means, that by subsidizing houses, where the market can’t just move along a sloped supply curve, you don’t even allow for more houses to be built, and more people to move into them. It’s the same number of people, just paying less (with the government paying more).

By allowing for increased density and thus more housing, you allow for greater numbers of people to live, for less cost.

None-the-less, your concerns about which areas were chosen are valid. The plans created winners out of developers, and theoretical monetary gain for society as a whole (with more money for building owners, and cheaper housing for people because of increased demand, yet some people lost: namely those who lived in the neighborhoods before didn’t want change, and who local government was meant to protect.

In the end, I agree with your conclusion: money and power speak. Changes are being made, but in the end politics don’t necessarily help people. Corruption will run rampant, and those will wealth will encourage change for their own benefits.

Max, you really nail the question down, and clearly state a well formulated opinion about how Time Square experienced a rebirth. A rebirth of times square allowed it to be revitalized into the bustling hub it is today.

 

In the 1970’s walking through Times Square one would see drugs, alcohol, fights, knifings, and shootings right in the street. The deteriorating street scene impacted loads of people and businesses, including pillars of Times Square such as the New York Times for whom Times Square got its namesake. In an interview with Arthur Sulzberger Jr, chairman of the New York Times he said journalists were often refusing jobs, for fear of walking the one block between Port Authority and their building. Sulzberger related an anecdote, where a truck driver was sitting in his truck waiting for it to be loaded, when he was shot.

A scene of disorder and griminess was present, and crimes and muggings were all too common. My uncle related a story to me, where he was mugged by a group of 10 men, who picked him up, ripped off all his clothes, and ran away leaving him shocked and in his underwear. These types of occurrences drove hoards of people away leaving New York desolate.

 

By the early 1980s New York was on the verge of bankruptcy and Times Square was a symbol of its decline. The city approved a radical redevelopment plan that would’ve gotten rid of the sleaze and culture of Times Square. The plan called for the construction of 27 high-rises. And a quartet that would’ve surrounded and dwarfed the Times Tower. Big signs and flashing lights would’ve been eliminated from Times Square. The city was offering zoning incentives to get people to build bigger building and create a cavern of quiet office buildings.

Clearly, the city was looking for a way to change Times Square. They were hoping, that by uprooting the industry supporting the violence, they’d be able to disperse it, and normalize day to day behavior.

 

Groups like the municipal arts society lead campaigns to stop the city from redesigning times Square. At one such event they staged a blackout to show how Times Square would look at night if it was just an office district. The city eventually abandoned its high-rise plans in the 1980s. Clearly, there was enough pressure to get the city to drop its plans, and a search for new plans ensued.

 

The city came up with a new idea built off shopping and media icons, to revitalize Times Square in a less seedy way. The critical turn-around came when Disney decided to come on condition of less sex shops. The city created new zoning laws to push out the sex shops and encourage big media outlets and high profile shopping in Times Square.

 

The order of events leading to the cities encouraging of Disney to come to Times Square shows the cities scorn of the prevalent sex industry that was Times Square. Today, as you state tourism has grown and crime rates have fallen. Times Square is occupied by new driving forces of more culturally acceptable entertainment and shopping.

 

I’d like to note that, although I definitely see a rebirth of Times Square shining through its changes, elements of revanchism also ever present. The idea of reversing losses caused by changes is a common theme in urban planning. Times Square had almost lost its ability to attract large crowds. It had almost become a struggle to find advertisers to fill the large billboards, and the policy makers missed the glory that once defined Times Square. They wished to recapture elements of old Times Square, and were thus thrilled with the refurbishment of old theatres.

 

Essentially, revanche and rebirth are two related terms. A city enacts a policy of revanche to recover losses and produce a rebirth. And although you describe a rebirth and I agree with you, I think elements of revanche are also prevalent.

Most of what you said echoed the sentiments expressed in the reading and other sources about Jane Jacobs I read. I definitely see all of her/your points as valid, and understand from where they stem.

Jane Jacobs was criticized as a “housewife” and told her work was also unscholarly and imprecise. While insulting Jacobs based on her marital status is an ad-hominem logical fallacy, the notion of criticizing the impracticality of her ideas of preserving communities based on their own natural development can be taken seriously.

Take the analogy of some horrible traffic on the highway, caused by a cardboard box on the road. While obviously, the cardboard box could easily be moved, every driver simply goes around it, and speeds ahead. Each individual sees no need to move the box, as it doesn’t directly inhibit them once they are passing it, yet it would impact large numbers of people, for one person to just stop for a second and move the box… This analogy epitomizes the benefit of a central force, working on behalf of the ‘greater good’. Nobody wants their house or property to be the sacrificial lamb used to benefit the ‘greater good’ yet somehow consensus is reached about the projects deeming them positive.

On the opposite side of the same coin, there is no way to ever repay  a displaced person. Their dwellings are invaluable for sentimental reasons, and impossible to calculate, especially after public projects change the value of surrounding properties.

While Jacobs was definitely an ‘activist’ of sorts, she can also be presented as a coward. Soon after she was arrested in 1968, Jane Jacobs abandoned New York and moved to Toronto (she said it was to avoid her children’s military draft into the Vietnam War.) It seems, as though when comparing her to Moses, Moses presented a greater level of dedication, basing much of his work on New York, and looking at it in a task/goal oriented fashion, as opposed to causing some helter-skelter, and running away.

A further criticism of both Jacobs writings and actions are implied gentrification. Jacobs lived in a New York converted candy shop- turned house in an up and coming neighborhood.  Again, poor people and old city dynamics are uprooted by new changes and rich people- proving that there is no ‘fair way’, only some are more natural.

During the construction of the Eiffel Tower in Paris there were many protests as it was called an eyesore. Guy de Maupassant said he went to a restaurant right under the Eiffel Tower daily because “it is the only place in Paris one can’t see the structure”. Yet today, Parisians generally love the Eiffel tower and appreciate it as an integral part of their city.

The Eiffel Tower analogy implies that nobody really knows what’s best. People’s opinions change and the world rapidly moves. What will we like/hate tomorrow nobody (including Moses) knows….